I'd like to see the trade evaluation from my perspective, i.e., based on my weights. The other side should be able to see the trade evaluation from his perspective, i.e., based on his weights. Nothing to be gained by gaming the weight system in that case because you're only hurting yourself if your weights are wrongly skewed, e.g., you value your DTs based on their ability to throw the ball. If by chance, both sides see a benefit to making the trade based on their respective weights, all the better.

The reason it is the way it is (and actually always was intended to be this way, the fact that it ever used your own weights was a bug) is because I am going to evaluate whether the trade is balanced by the default weights, regardless. If I don't do that, you could game the system (i.e. turn a 30-rated QB into a 100-rated QB because he has 100 for kick holding, and then turn around and trade him for a 1st round pick with a 'gentleman's deal' where the partner does the same thing for you in another league, or worse yet, by someone violating the terms and creating two accounts for this very purpose). But, if I don't use the same scores in the trade bar that I use to accept or reject the trade when it's submitted, you're going to get rejected trades that look perfectly balanced by your own weights.

Fundamentally I understand why you would prefer to see the bar by your own weights, but the fact that the system will end up rejecting many trades that appear balanced while accepting others that appear unbalanced, to me, would be a pretty strong point of confusion.

Perhaps you could show both? One line for the official evaluation based on defaults, and another showing how the trade is valued by my current weights.

But if both sides think it's balanced (from their own perspective), what's the harm of allowing a trade that is imbalanced because a GM improperly weighted his own players. There is no advantage to be gained by improperly weighting your own players if the other side ignores and never is exposed to your weights, but instead applies his own weights in valuing the proposed trade. In other words, the system now protects a GM from making a "bad" decision about how to weight his own players to be used in his own system for trade purposes.

For example, I might highly value the strength and speed of another GM's DE (which are both high) and not care much about his other attributes. The other GM might not value the speed and strength in the same DE, but instead, values the pass rush and acceleration of my DE (which are both high, but I don't value). Assume all attributes (other than strength and speed) are otherwise high for my DE, and all of the other attributes (other than strength and speed) are low for the other GM's DE. However, because of the strength and speed of the other GM's DE and despite the other DE's other low rated attributes, I want him. Furthermore, because of my DE's high pass rush and acceleration ratings, the other GM wants him (the other high ratings are simply icing on the cake because the other GM doesn't really think, rightly or wrongly, that they are important.

The way the game now works, an "even" trade (DE for DE) could likely be viewed as imbalanced because my DE has overall higher ratings (even in categories about which I could care less) and would therefore have a substantially higher default OVR. The other GM's DE would have a substantially lower default OVR because of the lower overall ratings (except in categories I value highly).

On the other hand, both myself and the other GM would value each other's DEs close to or equal in value because of the attributes we value respectively and would not view the trade as imbalanced. Nevertheless, neither of us would absolutely know why each coveted the other's DE, only that we both viewed the trade favorably from our own perspective.

That's not what I'm concerned about. We've already had instances (and I'm certain there have been more attempts that were blocked) of people who have created multiple accounts, joined two teams in the same league, and traded all the good players from one team to the other, or traded all the bad players from one team for all the first and second round picks from the other. If I let the trade balance be calculated from your own weights then there really is no point in having the system block unbalanced trades, which means any trade that is attempted will go through. And that has the potential to have a far more damaging impact on the competitive balance than not having the balance bar show your personal values.

This seems like a good compromise.

I think that would just lead to frustration. I understand the rationale for using the defaults. It is just a shame that people cheat. Anyway, there are far too many trades in this game. At least as compared to the NFL. So I am good.